Word Made Flesh

Yesterday, we started on a 5-week refresher, based on Kristin Linklater's exquisite guidebook to the universe, "Freeing Shakespeare's Voice."

Lying on the floor, standing there in a circle, with people I love and respect greatly, allowing vowels and consonants to have their way with us physically and emotionally -- well, as one teacher said to us once, "I'm not sure what it is, but it isn't nothing."

I must remember to prepare myself in the future, because it always opens a door of immediacy in me that I find it impossible to close.
Let that "O" really drop into the belly,
give in to all that vulnerability that "AY" demands,
and suddenly I feel everything intensely, personally, devastatingly. I can't turn it off, and frankly, I don't want to.
The best advice to myself and others at this point has always been to pray for a thick skin, and a soft heart.

Danger, Will Robinson: this experience cannot be about me. My vocation is to be an actor. I am an emotional skydiver on behalf of my audience. I serve the playwright and his text. I open myself as a vessel for the character that has been created. I give myself to my scene partners. And if I don't, then I am a selfish pig.

"Resist the sound for as long as you can," Kristin Linklater says, "and when you can't stand it any longer, give in to it." I give in. It's all there. I don't have to add anything, or be clever, or anything like that -- just available. Word made flesh.